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OEATION 



OF 



COL. THEO. P. cook:, 

m CIIANCELLOK SQUAEE, UTICy^^jJ 
JULY 4, I870. 




In the House of Commons, in 1775, on the 
motion of Lord North to dechire the province 
of Massachusetts in a state of rebehion, John 
Wilkes, in wliat seemed then a frenzied oration, 
uttered a remarkable prophecy. He said : — 
" Know, then, a successful resistance is a Rev- 
olution, not a rebellion. Rebellion, indeed, ap- 
pears on the back ot a flying enemy, but revo- 
lution flames on the breast-plate of the victo- 
rious warrior. I fear that from the decision of 
this day the Americans will rise to independ- 
ence, to power,, to all the greatness of the most 
renowned States ; for they build on the basis of 
general liberty. The Americans will triumph ; 
the whole continent of North America will be 
dismembered from Great Britain, and the wide 
arch of raised empire fall. Within a few years 
the independent Americans will celebrate the 
glorious era of their revolution of 1775 as we 
do that of 1C88. They will have their jubilees 
and their centenaries." 

Wilkes appreciated what a stupid King and 
his unwise counselors forgot : that a love of 
liberty, a sense of self-reliance, an independent 
strength of thought, an independent power of 
action, had been growing in this country — grow- 
ing gradually and developing by safe degrees — 
for one hundred and fifty — one hundred and 
seventy years. 

This spirit of independence, culminating in 
that grand Declaration which was published to 
the world four-and-ninety years ago to-day, was 
no plant of mushroom growth. It had sprout- 
ed under the hot sun of Virginia, at James- 
town ; it had taken root in mid-winter on the 
desolate shores of Plymouth Bay ; it was plant- 
ed by the Dutch colonists on the banks of the 
Hudson ; it was trained by the peaceful hand of 
Penn and his Quaker followers ; it grew grandly 
under the beneficent culture of Lord Baltimore 
in Maryland. It was enriched by blood ; it was 
watered by tears ; the Indian's tomahawk could 
not root it up nor the gaunt foot of Famine 
trample it down. The red heat of war could 
not wither it nor the storms of adversity blast ' 



it. It was a century plant which blossomed at 
last and brought forth the fuU-blowu flower of 
Liberty. 

What the value of that liberty is to us ; what 
we owe to those fifty-five men who sat in In- 
dependence Hall ; what we owe to those who 
fought the seven years war; what duties we 
owe to ourselves, to each other and to the 
world as American citizens : these are ques- 
tions which this day's dawning brings solemnly 
to mind. It were well for us to consider these 
questions in no spirit of self-glorification, with 
no swellings of boastful pride, no worshipings 
of our own grandeur ; but on the other hand, 
liere, to-day, on this birthday of our freedom, 
amid the booming of cannon and the pealing 
of bells, with the music of union ringing in 
our ears, and the flag —the flag unrer.t — the 
flag of our love and commemoration — waving 
above our heads, we should find small ground 
for despondency, little room for complaint, and 
indulge no doubt as to the ultimate destiny of 
our land. Be simple faith the word to-day — 
faith and high hope and good resolve. 

Look back for a moment on that scene which 
was enacted at Philadelphia in '76. No living 
witness remains to recount the glories of that 
day ; but what need of a living witness when 
its every incident is engraved on the heart of 
every citizen ? while it is the first story that 
childish lips may lisp and the last memory 
which decaying age retains ? 

Do you not see the small square room, the 
President's chair, in which is seated that 
anomalous merchant who loved liberty better 
than trade — John Hancock, of Massachusetts. 
Do you not see the Committee of five as they 
return from their deliberations bringing the 
document pregnant with meaning and big with 
the fate of millions born and of hundreds of 
millions yet unborn ? Do you not see Franklin, 
his long white hair flowing in cutis over his 
shoulders, ripe in"' the wisdom of three-score 
years and ten ? ' Roger Sherman, who had come 
up from the shoemakers' bench to stand in the 



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councils of the nation? brave John Adams, 
whose strong voice liad rung out open defiance 
to oppression iii Faneuil Hall, and had wakened 
his State to sturdy deeds at Lexington and 
Bunker Hill ? Philip Livingston, from our own 
good State, who laid the pride of gentle birth 
and the wealth of three generations as burnt 
offerings on the altar of liberty '? and towering 
above them all, his tall gaunt frame erect, his 
blue eyes lighted with the very fire of inspira- 
tion, behold the author of the Declaration — 
Thomas JeflTerson, of Virginia ! Outside that 
Hall a surging multitude was assembled, 
awaiting anxiously the result of those delibera- 
tions ; a multitude full of faith unshaken, 
strong in courage undaunted, and yet apprecia- 
ting the greatness of the work ; and counting, 
but not gi xugiug, the cost of the struggle 
yi which was already upon them. This to them 
was a day of sacrifice ; a day that foretold the 
awful days to come ; a day that pointed with 
prophetic finger to Monmouth's blood-stained 
sod and Trenton's cheerless ice ; a day which 
brought afresh to their minds the vision of the 
farmers lying dead by the road-side at Lexing- 
ton ; of Warren asleep, forever, at Bunker 
Hill ; a day that told of poverty and want and 
death — of straggling patriots pursued by merci- 
less foes, treading with naked, bleeding feet, 
snow-bound, shelterless fields — of women 
starving and children crying for bread — of wide- 
spread desolation and universal grief. 

Yes, it was a day of sacrifice, but it was 
none the less a day of rejoicing. Now, at last, 
after the long winter of tyranny ; sometimes of 
despair, bounded not by mouths but by scores 
years; after the slow spring-time of progress, of 
lessons hard-learned, of experiences bitter ; now 
at last the promise of a ioug w^ life, of a fuller 
freedom, of a grander destiny, shone upon this 
people, glorifying the red stains of Monmouth 
and melting the ice of Trenton. So it happened 
that when the old bell on the State House 
tower — the old bell with its prophetic inscrip- 
tion " Proclaimed Liberty throughout the land 
unto all the inhabitants tliereof," that surging 
multitude sent up a great shout of rejoicing — a 
shout which has echoed down through all these 
years and greets us here to-day. 

Such, then, imperfectly told, is the story of 
"76. The repetition of it ; the recollection of 
the subsequent years of war, of the adoption of 
the Constitution, of the establishment of the 
Government ; the memory of all these things 
were worse than vain if they taught us no les- 
sons, impressed upon our minds no higher sense 
of national duty and lighted within our hearts 
no new tiame of patriotism. 

The fathers of the Republic transmitted to us 
something more than an abstract love of liberty. 
They transmitted to us a form of government 
almost perfect in its provisions, but depending 



wholly for its strength and perpetuity upon the 
virtue and the integrity of the governed. They 
invested towns and counties and States with the 
right of local rule, and yet made each depend- 
ent on the other, and all, in the end, dependent 
on the general head. They discussed with grave 
concern, in the first convention, the antagonism 
which threatened to exist, which did exist, be- 
tween the States and the General Government. 
Here was the first great difficulty which arose. 
Here was a double fealty which citizens were 
called upon to pay ; fealty to the State and 
fealty to the nation. Here was a double loyalty 
which they were to exercise ; loyalty to the 
members and loyalty to the head of the great 
body politic. There were the States existing 
before the nation was created ; — the States 
whose borders were their borders ; under whose 
trees their houses were built, within whose soil 
their dead reposed ; — the States whose laws 
protected them ; whose schools educated their 
children ; whose police and militia guarded their 
homes ; whose asylums shielded their unfortu- 
nates ; whose opinions, literature and morality 
were all their own. These States were not one. 
At first thought it would seem that no strong 
element of unity existed amongst them. Picture, 
if you can, Cotton Mather, John Smith, William 
Peun, Hendrik Hudson and Lord Baltimore at- 
tempting to dwell together in unity and forming 
one family. How long a time do you think 
would elapse before the Quaker's heresies would 
arouse the Puritan's wrath and tempt him to 
lop off the offensive ears which refused to hear 
the Word as he heard it ? Would not the Cath- 
olic's devotions and self-abnegations excite the 
adventurer's contempt ? and would not the grim 
mien of the Pilgrim Father, and the "yea, yea," 
of the peaceful brother, fill the heart of the 
navigator with a longing desire for a free ship 
and a flowing sea ? 

And yet each of these men had exercised a 
strong and binding influence upon a separate 
colony : an influence which had gone down 
from sire to son, in tradition and legend, mould- 
ing character, guiding nature, directing pursuits, 
for seven generations. 

What power, not Omnipotent, then, was to 
unite these antagonistic characters, these di- 
verse elements, these diverging interests ? 

I will tell you. One single sentiment existed 
in common amongst them all — that sentiment a 
love of liberty. Through all the years of their 
national apprenticeship they had been learning 
the lesson that all men are created equal ;" that 
each has the right to life, liberty and the pur- 
suit of happiness. This grand idea inspired the 
eloquence ot Otis and Henry, pointed the pen 
of Jefferson and Paine, sharpened the bayonets 
of all their battles, " burst forth from a miUion 
lips, beamed in a million eyes, burned in a mil- 
lion bosoms," asserted itself when war was 



7 



ended, stifled the spirit of sectional animosity, 
bound heart to heart with strong fraternal 
bands, and joined thirteen States into a com- 
mon country, having one hope, one destiny, one 
future. 

Each State, in the beginning, was called upon 
to sacrifice something for the good of the whole. 
Some rights, some privileges, some prerogatives 
they must yield. Inspired by a high and holy 
patriotism, they made these sacrifices, comforted 
in the loss of powers which they had come to 
look upon as exclusively theirs, comforted, I say, 
by the conciliatory spirit which pervaded the 
first Constitutional Convention. 

But the establishment of the government did 
not put forever at rest the antagonism growing 
out of this double allegiance which men owed. 
The spirit which led many good and true citi- 
zens, amongst them the first Governor of the 
State of New York, to oppose the adoption of 
the Federal Constitution, was no unpatriotic 
nor selfish spirit. They simply loved the State 
which they knew to be good, better than the 
nation whose quality was then untested. . But 
when the instrument had become the- organic 
law of the land, they yielded a reverent obedience 
to its provisions, and the constitution found no 
worthier supporter than that same Governor, 
George Clinton. Unfortunately for us, the spirit 
of conciliation, thte willing yielding of minor 
points, the withholding of words that jarred, 
the abstaining from deeds that irritated, scarce- 
ly survived the lives of the fathers. But, for- 
tunately for us, there grew up in the minds of 
the majority of the people an earnest, honest, 
^eep-rootetHore— for the Constitution and the 
Union— T^one^ad-ia aepar able. 

How strong that love"w!TS ; to wliat extent it 
nerved the arm to do, the heart to dare, you 
and I learned on that April morning, when the 
fire which had smouldered for eighty years 
burst forth into a glaring, terrific blaze, threat- 
ening to consimie the fabric of our institutions 
and to sweep our nation from ofi" the face of 
the earth forever. Then it was that three 
thousand times three hundred men, brave as 
the storied heroes of Thermopylae, sprung forth 
to guard the Pass of the Union. Then it was 
that the young men of the land, taking their 
lives in their hands, went out to battle — fearing 
not death nor wounds nor suffering, content to 
die if the country might live. And the sequel 
of the story — you know that, too — how, after 
four years of war and blood and tears, after 
temporary defeat had clouded the skies and 
passing victories had shed the sunshine of hope 
abroad — how at last the sacred spirit of Peace 
descended, hushing the tumult in the breasts of 
men, calming the troubled waters, and restoring 
to us the heritage of a Union undivided. 

It were idle now to speculate on the policy 



which might have averted the calamity of our 
civil war. But this we know : it arose out of 
the same questions which most seriously dis- 
turbed the convention which framed the Con- 
stitution ; and we know that harmony was re- 
stored there and tlie compact made possible by 
mutual concessions and conciliations. How far 
available in producing the same beneficent re- 
sult, that spirit would have proved, had it been 
practiced in later years, we may not hope to 
know. But practical and not speculative ques- 
tions should engage our attention, if we would 
emulate the example of those who reduced 
what seemed a wild dieam of political equality 
to a substantial reality. By means of a war 
which cost us in treasure a sum difficult of com- 
prehension, and whose price in blood, in the 
homes desolated, in the altar-places made va- 
cant, in the brave hearts stilled, no human 
being would presume to estimate ; by means of 
such a war the integrity of the Union has been 
preserved. We should be false to the tradi- 
tions of this day and recreant to duty, if we 
failed to ponder seriously on the duties we owe 
to that Republic who&e foundations were laid 
in v.isdom and the pillars of whose temple val- 
orous hands have upheld. ^ 

Onr foremost duty as American citizens, it seems ■i'y^ 
to me, is obedience to law. Law is not a creature "^i/ 
of man's ^vHt;4t is aTTeceissity of the universe. No 
fallacj^ is greater than .that government is altogether 
a human institutiou, created, sustained by the peo- 
ple, and that they, as the source aud fountain of 
political power, are supreme. No treason is more 
odious than that which denies the power of law be- 
cause it does not suit the individual taste or square 
with the individual judgment. When the first pair 
w-ere created law was established. No convention 
dechired that government would be useful and that 
it should be founded amoiiijst men. It came by di- 
vine decree, coeval with the earth, coexistent with 
human kind. It has beeu said that if the First 
Great Cause which created the universe were to 
withhold His governing power for a single day, pri- 
meval chaos would come again. It is uo less true 
that if the restraining power of human law were re- 
moved, chaotic confusion would dismember the 
earth. ' 

Reckless passion may overturn government and 
anarchy may rule the hour; but passion quickly 
dies and anarchy compels the re-establishment of 
government. The French Revolution ended in a 
despotic rule. This was not anomalous ; this was 
natural. Two years ago the Spanish people, goaded 
to action by the unendurable tyranny of a contempt- 
ible Queen, overturned their government and en- 
trusted their destiny to the hands of demagogues 
and adventurers in whose breasts no reverence for 
law existed. It requires not a prophet's tongue to 
foretell the result. Before this year shall have pass- 
ed away, some despot will have seized the reins of 
government in Spain, aud you will find on the part 
of the people a ready obedience to the most exact- 
ing requirements. Under a tyrant a nation groans 
— but it lives ; under a lack of law it seems to re- 
joice — but it inevitably dies. 

The primary source of government is above and 
beyond man. But with us the secondary source is 
the people — the apparent, tangible power rests with 
them, aud with us government is impossible unless 
it controls the will and commands the respect of 
the people. For ours is a government of law and 



only of law. No paraphernalia of power exists. 
Those who make the laws and those who execute 
them are equally amenable with others to their pro- 
visions. No favored purple adorns our rulers, no 
crowns symbolize authority, and — e.xcept so far as 
the vanity of man has made "Honorable" and 
" Excellency " customary — no titles belong to the 
public servants. We only know that law exists 
when we feel its power or incur its penalties — and 
yet it is all there is of our Government. 

Let us hope that the evil day may never come 
when our people shall cease to respect the organic 
law of the land ; when the passing passions of the 
hour shall dictate statutes for the government of 
those against whom such passions are aroused ; 
when the hope of favor or the fear of opprobrium or 
the zeal of partizanship shall affect the decisions or 
our high courts ; when capitalists shall use the pow- 
er of the law for selfish purposes to protect their 
personal interests from competition, or when rulers 
shall present the tyrant's plea of "necessity" as an 
excuse for disregarding the law which they have 
sworn to execute and obey. 

Assuming that trie stability ot our Government 
depends on the respect of our people for law, a very 
grave question presents itself for consideration at 
this time. What would be the efl'ect of infusing 
into the body politic an element utterly antago- 
nistic to our civilization ? We are forty millions — 
Saxon, Norman, Dane and Celt — liberty-loving peo- 
ple all. The struggles of the Germanic tribes 
against tyranny form part of our traditions; the 
Dutch Declaration of Independence dating back to 
1580 is ours; the victory of Runn.ymede— Magna 
Charta lighting the gloom of the thirteenth century, 
Cromwell's protectorate, the long light between 
Roundheads and cavaliers— these things are not 
more England's history than ours. Thelong-sufier- 
ing of Ireland, her devotion to liberty, which force 
could not crush, her fidelity to' religious conviction, 
which oppression could not alter, are all woven in- 
to our legends. This unites us. So, in one sense, 
our religion is common. Jew and Gentile, Catholic 
and Protestant, Quaker and Rationalist, are we ; 
and yet with all this diversity of belief we unite on 
the essential point that a moral life, and a moral 
life only, can win the favor of an over-ruling 
Providence. But on the other side of the world is 
a country, vast in extent, occupied by 400,000.000 of 
people whose traditions contain no sentiment of 
liberty, and whose religion inculcates no rule of 
morality. This people is not a sava^^e people. In 
fact, its enervated civilization is so old that the love 
of freedom, the impatience of restraint, which is 
the strongest instinct of the untrained, natural man, 
has utterlj- withered and died within the breast of 
the Chinese ; — it withered and died so long ago that 
no memory of it remains. I said, just now, that 
China was on the other side of the world ; but it is 
only twenty-six days' journey from New York. It 
is nearer than England was at the time of the Revo- 
lution ; it is nearer than California was a dozen 
years ago. The walls tha f have hedged it in for thirty 
centuries were battered down by a treaty signed at 
Washington, in 1867. Thousands of Chinamen are 
already swarming to our shores ; hundreds of thous- 
ands await only the means of transportation ; the 
loss of millions would scarcely be felt in the thickly 
populated sections of Asia. And these new immi- 
grants are coming to us unbound by any family ties, 
unrestrained by any moral obligations, unelevated 
by any patriotic impulses. It is sickening to hear 
men praise the unquestioning obedience and ser- 
vility of the Chinese workmen. Pray, what arti- 
cle of our political creed makes blind, animal docil- 
ity a virtue ? The booming of cannon to-day drowns 
the voices and answers the argument of tliese eulo- 
gists of slavish qualities. It commemorates the 
independence of men, who, had they possessed this 
detestable Asiatic attribute, would have left their 



children subjects of the British throne through all 
time to come. I have no inclination, nor have I the 
ability, to enter into the full discussion of this ques- 
tion. How far this Chinese immigration will tend 
to injure our laboring classes, how far it will jeopar- 
dize "our liberties, these are problems demanding 
the most earnest thought of the most earnest minds. 
But I trust and believe that the bitter condemnation 
of a united people will rest upon any man, native 
or foreign born, who shall continue or countenance 
the new species of traflic in human flesh which has 
already been inaugurated. I blush for my native 
State when I read that a Massachut^etts manufactur- 
er has hired forty workmen from a California con- 
tractor who keeps Asiatic slave labor for sale ! 

With this Chinese question upon us, it becomes, 
more than ever, necessary to cultive amongst the 
intelligent masses a comprehensive knowledge of 
our form of government and to inculcate a willing 
and intelligent acquiescence to its laws. Another 
duty that we owe is toleration. A free press and 
free speech are the necessary adjuncts of our nation- 
al existence. Discussion naturally begets differences 
of opinion; difterences of opinion beget political 
parties. Without these, thought would stagnate, 
improvement cease and progress die. A wholesome 
opposition to any proposed policy compels the 
champions of that policy to make it, in the main, 
acceptable. A wholesome competition for public 
place tends to secure to the people better represen- 
tatives. Provided he be honest in his convictions, 
I would not have my Republican neighbor any less 
a Republican, and I certainly would not want my 
Democratic h'iend to abate one iota of his enthusi- 
asm for Democratic principles. But I would have 
both tolerant of the views of all. Unfortunately, 
the spirit which led the Administration in 1798 to 
imprison a Congressman for criticising the Presi- 
dent is not wholly extinct. Some few seeds which 
the honest but mistaken Puritans dropped by the 
wayside, when they were chasing the Baptists into 
Rhode Island and the Quakers into the sea, have 
taken root in the hearts of men in our time, leading 
them to apply opprobrious ei)ithets to political oppo- 
nents and to arrogate to themselves the exclusive 
possession of intelligence and the sole claim to mo- 
rality. Our last great dutj"^ — and perhaps to-day our 
first great duty— Is to cultivate a spirit of nation- 
ality. A certain sort of patriotism is natural to all. 
The child learns it before he knows what it means. 
The songs of birds, the babbling brooks, the green 
trees, the growing harvest, the family hearthstone, 
tlie white-spired church, the old red school-house, 
all teach him to love his home, to love his surround- 
ings, and out of this grows his love of country. 
But this spirit may be increased. Take the child on 
your knee and when he asks to hear a story tell him 
of that boy who fell pierced by British bullets in the 
streets of Boston an hundred years ago last March; 
tell him the story of the flag when his eyes first turn 
to admire its glittering folds gleaming in the sun- 
shine; go with him to the grave wliere sleeps -the 
veteran hero who fought in the revolutionary war; 
picture to his comprehension that scene at Bunker 
Hill ; teach him to lisp the name of Washington 
with gratitude and reverence; and above all im- 
press, "very early, upon his mind that this day is 
just as sacred iii the annals of Freedom as is the 
Christmas day in the annals of religion. And 
while you thus instruct him, raise your own thoughts 
above the level of sordid gain and of selfish ambi- 
tion. Look out upon your country stretching its 
generous arms from ocean to ocean — from the ice- 
barriers of the north to the endless summer of the 
tropics. Ponder upon the glories of the past and 
the possibilities of the future ; then, in humble 
spirit, dedicate your lives anew to the duties of 
American citizenship. Thus shall you become 
worthy sons of those sires whose deeds we have this 
day endeavored to commemorate. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



1460 170 6 



